Pollard Appeal Raises Broader Issues
By Avraham Weissman Monday, February 27, 2017
http://hamodia.com/2017/02/27/pollard-appeal-raises-broader-issues/

NEW YORK - In the latest filing in the ongoing legal battle seeking the
removal of broad and severe parole restrictions, attorneys for Jonathan
Pollard warned on Monday that were a lower court’s ruling rejecting a habeus
corpus petition allowed to stand, it would set a precedent that would have
dire consequences for the rights of many other Americans.

Pollard was released from prison a year ago November after serving an
unprecedented 30 years for passing classified information to an ally,
Israel. He is currently required to wear a GPS monitoring system that
consists of a non-removable transmitter worn on his wrist, and a receiver
that is plugged into an electrical outlet in his Manhattan residence.
Whenever he moves outside the range of the receiver, the transmitter acts as
a GPS tracker and monitors his location. Were Pollard to step out of his
tiny studio apartment to daven with a minyan or get some fresh air on
Shabbos or Yom Tov, the battery would begin to drain, forcing him to choose
between violating Shabbos or facing re-arrest.

The parole restrictions also include a “curfew” that puts him under house
arrest between 7:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. During the daytime, he is only
permitted to travel in parts of Manhattan, and is even prohibited from
visiting nearby Brooklyn. The restrictions also include the unfettered
monitoring and inspection of his computers, as well as those of any employer
who chooses to hire him, which has prevented him from being able to gain
employment.

In the brief, written by a team of lawyers led by his long-time pro-bono
attorneys Eliot Lauer and Jacques Semmelman, Pollard argues that “neither
the Commission, nor its backers in the intelligence agencies, have pointed
to an iota of still-classified information accessed by Pollard during
1984-1985 that is of a type that he, or any human being, could possibly
retain in his head after 31 years.”

In court documents, the Parole Commission has indicated that it is not
required to provide any evidence proving that Pollard currently poses a
threat to national security that would explain such restrictions, but that a
simple assertion by the intelligence community to this effect should
suffice.

“The Commission’s position would enable any government agency to make
entirely conclusory determinations that have no factual basis, and to have
those determinations insulated from judicial review merely because the
Commission accepted them as true,” Pollard’s attorneys argue. “That is not
the law, and should not become the law.”

A legal observer who has been following the Pollard case for many years, and
spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the
matter, told Hamodia that Pollard’s attorneys were taking a “very compelling
approach.”

“What they are basically saying is that if you allow the Parole Commission
to set forth such claims without providing any facts, any other government
agency can do the same — depriving individual Americans throughout this
country of their basic rights,” the observer said.

Both sides have requested oral arguments before the appeals court.